


I Made a Vow To Carry You Home

by hopelessromantic549



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a happy ending!, Canon Compliant, F/M, Pre-5B, The Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:11:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessromantic549/pseuds/hopelessromantic549
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Underworld is nothing like Emma expected; it's just like Storybrooke. Same clocktower, same library, same Granny’s. Same people, too. But Killian. Killian, who wears his pirate leathers here, who swaggers down the street threatening townspeople and flirting with every woman he passes, who brandishes his hook around like the weapon it hasn’t been in months. </p><p>Killian, who doesn’t recognize Emma at all.</p><p>Post 5x11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Made a Vow To Carry You Home

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a while ago, and of course now it doesn’t fit into what we know so far about the Underworld at all (lol the perils of sneak peeks), but it took hold of me anyway, so here it is! Basically your standard Emma saves Killian, but with a twist of course ;) Title from So Here We Are by Bloc Party.
> 
> Many thanks to emlovesyouu for her tireless help! This story is a million times better because of her.
> 
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated ☺
> 
> P.S. I deleted and re-uploaded this because I completely and utterly mistagged it. So sorry!!!

_And if I stay with you,_  
_Do you believe that I'll pull through?  
_ _\- Once by Blackfield_

The Underworld is nothing like Emma expected.

She’s not entirely sure what she did expect – she’s only recently begun to accept that fairytale characters exist, after all – but it’s not this. After all, the Underworld is just like Storybrooke. Same clocktower, same library, same Granny’s.

Same people, too.

Life continues as it always has in the sleepy town, with everyone she’s ever loved who has died (so basically everyone except her parents and Henry) carrying on as if nothing ever happened. Graham wears his sheriff’s badge on his hip and smiles that kind smile whenever he sees her, and she aches because he’ll be here forever, because she could have loved him but never had the chance to, because she’s not here for him. Neal takes care of Henry and hugs her every time she picks him up at the end of the day, and she feels only a slight twinge in her chest because he died a hero, because at least he came into Henry’s life again, because he seems at peace here.

But Killian. Killian, who wears his pirate leathers here, who swaggers down the street threatening townspeople and flirting with every woman he passes, who brandishes his hook around like the weapon it hasn’t been in months.

Killian, who doesn’t recognize Emma at all.

…

The first time she sees him, she has to fight the urge to run to him. He’s standing on the dock, preening as he admires the Jolly Roger, and when he turns at the sound of her steps his eyes are even bluer than she remembers, rimmed with that telltale black, and her breath leaves her body.

“Killian,” she says, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare at him.

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s Captain Hook to you, love,” he leers, coming towards her, his thumbs in his belt loops, a familiar gesture that makes tears spring to her eyes. “I’ve no idea who’s told you my given name, but as you can see, I’m a pirate, and you’ll call me Captain Hook.”

Emma swallows, hard. She’d prepared herself for the possibility that he wouldn’t know who she is, of course – Regina had warned her that there are no rules in the Underworld, and that in her experience Hades likes to play games – but the blankness in his eyes still shakes her to her core. She can’t bear to start all over with him.

But she has to. If she wants him back (and she does, oh she _does_ , she can’t sleep another night without him beside her), she’ll have to make him remember.

He steps close to her, close enough that she can see the flicks of yellow in his pupils, close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from his exposed chest. “What can I do for you, lass?” He asks, voice a low, seductive purr, eyebrows waggling. “My ship is just there if you need to rest your legs.”

She snorts despite herself. “Does that line actually work for you?”

He grins at her, and it’s something genuine, a crack in the veneer, and she feels hope well in her throat before she can get a grip. “You’d be surprised, Swan,” he says, and she looks at him sharply, confused that he seems to know her name, but he doesn’t register the strangeness, at least in any way she can detect. “Women tend to fall into bed with me.”

He’s joking with her like always, but he’s also looking at her with naked lust, and she trembles. It’s been so long since he’s looked at her like that, like he could eat her alive, like he wants to lick every inch of her body and make her scream his name, like he wants to strip her bare and drown in her. It’s a heady feeling, and she has to blink and step back before she gives in and crushes her lips to his. She knows, somehow, that physical consummation won’t save him. Their entire relationship began with pure carnal attraction, but she knows it won’t be enough. If she wants to save him, she’s going to have to make him remember that he loves her.

So she deflects, and she chats with him about anything and everything. He’s just as witty as she remembers, just as sly and quick with his jabs, and it gives her hope.

When she leaves him on the dock, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she can do this.

…

She goes to the docks the next day. Regina gave her a stern lecture last night about keeping her distance from Killian, letting him come to her, but Emma discovers that she honestly can’t stop herself from seeking him out. It’s a new feeling, admittedly; Killian has always been the one chasing after her, has always been the one holding out his hand and asking her to take the next step with him. But she’s here to save him from the Underworld, and she knows it’s time to break the mold and demolish her walls once and for all.

He’s standing in the same spot he was yesterday, long leather jacket billowing around his hips in the blustery wind. Again, he turns at the sound of her voice, and again, he smiles that slow smile at her, warm and suggestive.

She swallows. No one has been able to advise her on how to make him remember her. Her parents seem to think she and Killian have True Love, but she has this awful feeling that that won’t work. As Killian himself learned when he tried to kiss her in New York, True Love’s kiss is just a kiss without one’s memory.

“What can I do for you, lass?” He asks, sea foam eyes fixated on her, glowing with playfulness, and she smiles without her own volition. “My ship is just there if you need to rest your legs.”

Her smile falters. “Are you really so bad at pick-up lines that you have to use the same one twice on me?”

He peers at her curiously, the swagger suddenly gone from his normally provocative stance. “Love, I do not know what you mean by ‘pick-up lines,’ but I certainly would not attempt to proposition you in the same way twice,” he assures her, and now she finds she can’t breathe. “And besides, seeing as we’ve never met, this is obviously an original offer.”

She stares blankly at him. “You’ve – we’ve – you’ve never seen me before?”

He steps closer to her, concern furrowing his brow, and it’s too much for her – she can’t handle him worrying about her but having no idea who she is.

“Love?” He asks, putting his hands on her shoulders, as if to steady her. “This is the first time we’ve met. Trust me, I would remember such an attractive broad as you.”

He grins at her.

She turns on her heel and runs.

…

She cries in Mary Margaret’s arms all night.

She was prepared for Killian not to recognize or remember her. She was prepared for him to be in his most vengeful phase and scoff that he had no patience for her. She was prepared for him to hate her, to call her names. But she was not prepared for his memory to restart every day. She has no idea how she can possibly bring him home when she’ll have to start over _every single day_.

Regina makes her hot chocolate with cinnamon and grasps her hands tightly. “I’ve never heard of this before,” she says ruefully, her eyes heavy and sad. “I’m not entirely surprised – Hades loves to fuck with people in new and exciting ways.”

Emma just blinks at her, eyes aching with tears. “What do I do?”

She hates how vulnerable she sounds.

Regina shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know,” she confesses. “I guess you have to break through his amnesia and somehow make the memory of you stick. Unfortunately this is _your_ love story. You’re going to have to figure out how to make him the Hook we know on your own.”

Emma can’t handle it – she buries her head in her mother’s chest and sobs.

...

She can’t sleep that night, but the next morning, she walks to the docks anyways. Killian has never given up on her, no matter how much she has tried to push him away. She owes him the same.

Today, she doesn’t falter when his gaze skates over her without any recognition. She doesn’t cry when he propositions her with the same wry nod towards his ship. She doesn’t turn away when he flirts with her and teases her. She stays, and she flirts back, and she pushes his buttons and challenges his come-ons, just like she did in the beginning of their relationship.

She answers his flirtation with her own for a few days, until she realizes that although she’s having fun engaging in their trademark witty banter, she’s not getting anywhere.

So she changes her tactic, trying for honesty over breezy interaction. She tells him everything with as much detail as she can. To his credit, he listens patiently, and he never calls her crazy. He even seems to believe her – he tells her it sounds feasible, at least in the magical realm that he has inhabited all of his life, and that she has no reason to lie to him. But the light doesn’t shift in his eyes, and he tells her sorrowfully that he accepts her tale but has no recollection of any of it. She tries her hardest not to be disappointed. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

The next day, she tells him the whole story again. He’s just as magnanimous as he was the first time, and he holds her hands tightly and promises her that he will do everything in his power to come back to her. She can tell he means it – her superpowers have never failed her with him, from the first time they met when he introduced himself as a blacksmith and she just knew the story was more complicated than that – but she can also tell that there’s no emotion behind it. She’s succeeded in making him believe their history, but he doesn’t remember it on his own.

The day after that, Emma gets straight to the point and plays a recording of their conversation. She watches as Killian’s eyes widen at the tape recorder, as his grip on her hands tighten, as he smiles shakily. Once the bare bones of their story have been related, Emma decides to be brave and tell him their love story.

She tells him how she hated him in the beginning, how he was a villain and he schemed against her family until she gave him a chance to be a part of something. She tells him how he started to win her heart when he volunteered his ship to rescue her son, and that when they kissed in Neverland, her whole world snapped into focus. She tells him how he tirelessly tried to break down her walls, how his steadfast presence helped her navigate Zelena, how she realized she needed him when he followed her through the time portal without a second thought. And she tells him how well they loved each other, how they made each other’s burdens lighter, how they worked together to be happy, how she fell for him harder and faster than she ever thought she could.

Talking about the darkness is more difficult for her. She stutters and halts several times as she tries to explain her decision to surrender him to the darkness to save his life. He’s more understanding and compassionate than he was in the real Storybrooke, and it hurts her more than she thought it would – it hurts when he rubs her shoulders, when he pulls her close to his side, when he touches his lips to her forehead and whispers that if their love is as pure as she makes it seems, then he will find his way back to her. Killian in the Underworld is more like Captain Hook than her Killian has been in a long time, but Killian in the Underworld is also softer than she imagined he would be, more generous with his touches, more affectionate than she deserves.

“I love you,” she says quietly when she’s done with her tale. His hand is on her cheek, his fingers rough and precious as they trace the line of her jaw. His eyes are stormy – she wishes she could fall overboard with him, wishes she could drown with him.

(In him.)

He smiles at her, something so soft that she has to bite her lip to keep from crying. “I’m beginning to believe you, love,” he says, fingers carding through her hair, scratching her scalp in a delicious rhythm. “I’m beginning to see that you are the best thing that has happened to me in my three centuries.”

She starts to cry. He’s acting like her Killian, he’s talking like her Killian, he’s touching her like her Killian. But he’s not her Killian. There’s no love in his eyes – only affection and profound gratefulness.

Still, she can’t resist leaning towards him and kissing him.

He doesn’t hesitate. He simply moves to cup her head, his fingers tangled in her hair, and slants his lips against hers with a familiarity that makes her heart hiccup in her chest.

He tastes like he always has: like the sea. Like coming home, really.

When they break apart, she’s smiling brighter than the sun, and his answering grin makes her believe that maybe, just maybe, she can bring him back.

…

Predictably enough, it’s Regina that bursts Emma’s bubble.

Emma arrives back at the loft happier than she’s been in months. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes are glittering, and she can’t seem to stop smiling. She’s replaying the kiss in her head, remembering the heat in Killian’s eyes when he pulled away, the pressure of his lips on hers, the slide of his tongue and the way her hands pulled at his lapels.

But Regina narrows her eyes when Emma walks through the door. “What’s got you all full of butterflies?”

Emma sighs, almost giddy with the headiness of kissing Killian. “I kissed Killian,” she admits. “And I think I’m finally getting through to him. He doesn’t remember anything about us, obviously, and I’m pretty sure his memory is still going to reset tomorrow, but I saw something in his eyes, and I think it won’t be long before –”

“Good,” Regina says curtly, her eyes hard, and Emma stiffens. “Because Hades paid us a visit. We have a week to make Killian remember and then we’ll have to leave without him, or we’re all going to be trapped here forever.”

Emma hesitates. “A week?”

Regina nods. “A week. And then, we’re going to have to give up, or else the Underworld won’t just be a temporary stop – it’ll be our new home.”

Emma is suddenly filled with cold despair, and no matter how many times David hugs her or Mary Margaret assures her she can make Killian remember, the emptiness doesn’t go away.

…

Emma steadily grows more desperate as the days relentlessly tick by. She follows the same script with Killian every time she sees him: she explains their history, with as much emotion as she can muster despite the ache in her chest that reminds her that she cannot be whole without him, and then she kisses him, trying to pour her love into him. He responds the same way no matter how many times she does it. He kisses her back, and he whispers sweet nothings. But he’s still not her Killian.

She’s beginning to worry that she may never see her Killian again.

…

The last day of the dreaded week, Emma can’t bring herself to go to the docks. She has failed Killian. He has brought her back to herself time and time again (in Neverland, in New York, in Camelot), and she has failed at the only task that has ever mattered. She doesn’t think she can look at him, doesn’t think she can face the reality that she has not been able to figure out how to save him.

So she spends the day on the couch, staring blankly at the wall and wishing she could stay in the Underworld with Killian no matter the consequences. Her family putters around her, making her hot chocolate and speaking in obvious whispers, but Emma pays them no mind. All she can think about is the color of Killian’s eyes.

The sun has just begun to set, reds and oranges blending like cotton candy into the horizon, when Mary Margaret sits across from Emma on the couch and says gently, “You should go see Killian.”

Emma doesn’t look at her. “Why would I do that?”

Her mother sighs. Emma thinks that she has never been so jealous of her – she and David have always managed to find each other.

“You should give it one last shot,” Mary Margaret says. “Try one more time to bring him back.”

“It hasn’t worked before,” Emma says, feeling like she might fade away from the pain of failing to save the one person who has never abandoned her. “I’ve been trying for almost a month, and it hasn’t worked. I can’t see him again. I can’t _try_ again.”

Mary Margaret reaches out to touch her knee, and Emma finally looks at her. There’s so much love in her mother’s soft brown eyes that she feels tears start to leak from her eyes.

“Then go be with him,” Mary Margaret says, her gaze steady and sure. “If we can’t save him, you should be with him tonight. You might never see him again after tomorrow, and you will regret it for the rest of your life if you’re not with him tonight. It’s going to make saying goodbye even harder and more painful, but trust me, from personal experience, you want to be with him tonight.”

Emma is freely crying now, tears streaming unbidden down her face. She makes no move to wipe them away.

“What would I even do?” She asks, her voice breaking. “How can I be with him when I’ve failed him?”

Mary Margaret grabs her hands. “Oh Emma, you didn’t fail him,” she says. “You went to hell to get him back. We always knew it was a long shot, and all you can do now is cherish him. Hold him, Emma. Hold him, and kiss him, and tell him you love him. And love him, like you always have. If he’s going to be here forever, he deserves your love tonight.”

Emma shakes, sobs wracking her fragile body, but she knows Mary Margaret is right. Killian has lacked love almost all of his life. She can’t deprive him of hers now.

So she nods, and she lets Mary Margaret pull her into her arms, and she cries until she can’t cry anymore.

And then, she goes to Killian.

…

He’s not in his usual place when she approaches, and she indulges in a brief moment of panic – maybe Hades changed his mind and took him away, maybe she got the timeline wrong, maybe he’s receded even further into the Underworld – before remembering that it’s one in the morning. He must be asleep in his quarters.

She hesitates before boarding his ship. She’s never been on his ship in the Underworld. The Jolly Roger is responsible for some of her best memories, and it’s painful that the man dozing below deck has no idea that once, not so long ago, they made love on the prow, lit only by the starlight, and he told her that he had never known such profound peace. It hurts more than she can describe to know that come the morning she will lose him, but knowing that the man she will leave behind will not understand why exactly she’s so distraught?

Unbearable.

But she boards the ship anyway and makes her way below deck with careful determination, her steps the only sound in the quiet night. She knocks on the door of the captain’s quarters, and then there he is, barefoot and shirtless, clad only in black linen pants, his hook nowhere to be found, his eyes flickering in the scant candlelight.

He’s so beautiful she trembles.

He looks at her steadily. “What can I do for you, love?”

She closes her eyes briefly at the sound of his voice, rough with sleep, scratchy with a delicious promise that makes her want. Her gaze lingers on the thatch of wiry black hair at his breastbone, on the dip of his hips into his thin pants, on the curve of his lips as they stretch into a tentative smile. She can’t help herself – she steps closer to him, resting her palm on his heartbeat, breathing in that telltale smell of the sea.

He blinks. “Now, love, you’re an attractive lass to be sure, but usually I prefer a nightcap before I indulge in any sort of –”

“We’ve already done that,” she says softly, stroking his face with one hand. His beard feels so welcome beneath her touch that she almost cries. “The first time we met – well, technically it was the first time, even though you don’t remember it even in the real world – we flirted over rum before you took me back to your ship for a nightcap.”

He shakes his head in confusion and disbelief, but somehow, as if of its own accord, his good hand has come to rest on her waist, his fingers creeping up her camisole to linger on her bare skin. “Forgive me, love, but I think I would remember a beautiful lass such as yourself,” he says ruefully, and there’s something in his eyes that has her moving even closer to him. “I do believe we’ve never met before, but if you’d like to come in for a nightcap I’d be more than happy to –”

“Make love to me.”

He just stares at her, and she finds herself smiling. Maybe she should be sad right now, or angry, or empty, or any other negative emotion. But she just feels warm and full, here in the arms of a man who doesn’t remember her but who she somehow knows still loves her.

“Make love to me,” she repeats serenely, reaching up on her tiptoes to brush her lips across his.

He doesn’t kiss her back, but he doesn’t pull away either.

He continues to stare at her, his eyes wide and searching. “Seeing as I do not know who you are, I cannot possibly grant your request. I am a pirate, and as such I am not much in the habit of ‘making love.’ At least, not since my dear Milah.”

Emma expects a hot stab of jealousy when he says his deceased lover’s name, but she still just feels warm. This man has changed her, possessed her body and soul, and she is helpless to walk away.

“Maybe so,” she concedes, tracing the scar on his cheek with her fingertips. “But you’ve made love to me countless times. You don’t remember, obviously, but I can tell that you feel it. So let me show you.”

“Show me?” He echoes, sounding so vulnerable that she feels a pang of affection. She will never get used to being the one who gets to prove to him that he deserves love.

She nods, smiling up at him. “Let me show you,” she repeats, gently pushing him backwards into his quarters and closing the door behind them. “You might not remember me, but I love you, no matter what. I’ve loved you pretty much since the beginning.”

His eyes are hot and demanding, his hands sweeping her leather jacket off her shoulders. “You love me.”

She nods again, lifting her shirt over her head, treasuring the catch in his breath and the way his pupils dilate as his gaze skates over her bra-clad chest. His hands skim up her sides to cup her breasts, his thumbs dipping beneath the lace to brush her nipples, and his touch is as full of wonder as it always has been.

She knows this is crazy. But she has no idea what else to do.

“I love you,” she whispers, her hands tangling in his hair as he bends his head to slide her bra off and lave her nipple with his tongue. “Our story is complicated, but you broke down my walls. You made me believe in myself, you made me believe in us. I’ll always love you. I’m not sure I know how to stop.”

He lifts his head to look at her, his grin a beautiful mixture of desire and pure, tangible affection. “You do love me,” he says, and it doesn’t even sound cocky, he just sounds like she’s given him the greatest gift he’s ever received. “I don’t know who you are, but I feel…something.”

She smiles. “That’s enough for me.”

He just grins in return, and then, he leans down to kiss her. It’s slow, unhurried, his tongue sweeping into her mouth as his hand delicately cradles her face, the lean lines of his body pressed against hers, his lips so familiar, so right, that she feels love flood her chest. He walks them backwards, his grip on her waist sure and true, and turns her around so that her back hits the bed first.

He hovers above her, his weight centering her in all the right ways, and he sweeps her hair off her face shakily. “This should feel strange,” he muses. “I’ve bedded many a woman in my lifetime, but I’m not usually in the habit of bedding unfamiliar women who claim they love me and that they somehow have been expunged from my memory. This should definitely feel strange.”

Her hands skim the expanse of his bare back. “Does it feel strange?”

His eyes shimmer in the dim light. “No,” he says, kissing her gently on the forehead. “Somehow, I believe you.”

Tears flood her eyes at his blind faith in her, and all she can do in response is kiss him.

They make short work of each other’s clothes – she’s already straining against him, the feeling of his bare skin on hers almost more than she can handle, and he unbuttons her jeans with nimble fingers, and she pushes his pants down with her feet. She’s impatient now – the sun will be rising in a few hours, and then he’ll be gone. She wants this one last memory to sustain her for as long as possible.

Suddenly, they’re naked, and he’s looking at her, _into_ her, and it doesn’t feel like they’re in the Underworld, it feels like any other night she’s spent in his arms, like any other night he’s made her fall apart and come back together.

“Are you ready, love?” He asks, reaching down to sweep a finger through her wetness, making her arch into him instinctively, greedy for more of his touch. She’d forgotten how easily she reacts to him, how much she craves having him inside her.

She breathes a “Yes” that sounds choked and shaky to her own ears, but it doesn’t matter, because his eyes stay on hers, something like love shining in those blue depths, and then, with one thrust, he’s inside her, and she has lost the ability to think.

It is exactly as she remembers. He moves in her as if they’ve been doing this dance all their lives, his lips gentle and coaxing against hers. He holds her hands above her head, her legs wrapped around his back, and he whispers that she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen (she knows he means it). It seems like he still knows everything about her body, knows which angles will have her muttering incoherent words, knows that if he kisses her on the pulse point on her neck her hips will lift off the bed, knows that she loves when he cards his fingers through her hair and pulls lightly.

It’s perfect.

Emma never wants it to end, but eventually, she feels white-hot pleasure building in her core, and she grabs his shoulders tightly, her normal signal that she won’t last much longer. Of course, he understands (she wonders what it means that he hasn’t forgotten anything about their lovemaking), and he kisses her harder, continuing to move, hitting that same spot over and over again until she sees sparks behind her eyelids.

She falls over the edge, and she thinks she’s babbling nonsense, but after a moment, she realizes that she’s merely repeating _love you love you love you_ over and over again like a mantra, like she wants to sear the words into his skin.

(She does.)

Her eyes snap open, and he’s looking at her like he could drown in her.

“I love you,” he whispers.

She barely has time to appreciate it or wonder what it means, because now he’s falling, too, his face set in the familiar mask of pleasure-pain.

He breathes her name as he comes down, burying his head in the crook of her neck, and it’s only when his heartbeat starts to slow that she realizes that he has never once called her by her first name in the Underworld.

…

When it’s over, he doesn’t let her leave. He wraps his arms around her and eases her head onto his chest, and she listens to his heartbeat, strong and sure in the dark stillness of his cabin. The ship rocks slowly, he kisses her hair, and she feels something in her unravel.

She’s almost asleep when he whispers, “Swan?”

She lifts her head up groggily, and she’s greeted by his bright blue eyes, impossibly beautiful in the scarce moonlight. “Swan,” he says again, his voice tender, his hand reaching up to stroke her cheek, and her heart hiccups because it almost sounds like – “Why does it feel like we’ve done this before?”

She stiffens.

She lays her head back on his chest, her heart pounding almost uncontrollably. “Because we have.”

…

They don’t sleep much that night.

She tells him their entire complicated history, as she has every day since she’s been here. When she tells him these might be their last moments together, her voice cracks, and she can’t continue.

He just holds her, and they cry together.

She drifts off to sleep in his arms and thinks that her mother was right. She needed to be here tonight.

…

The sun wakes her in the morning; its fragile light is streaming through the window by Killian’s bed, and she stretches, a delicious ache shuddering through her body as her skin scratches against Killian’s. They’re tangled together in the sheets, every inch of her thrumming with pleasure as she breathes in his heady scent.

She lies there for a while, unwilling to break the moment just yet, curled into Killian, her head on his chest so she can let the sound of his strong heartbeat echo in her blood. She’ll have to say goodbye to him soon; she wants to be here, in this tenuous sphere of warmth and love, for as long as possible.

Finally, as the sun creeps higher in the sky, Killian stirs. He presses a kiss to her hair, a touch so tender that it tugs at her heartstrings, and pulls back just enough to look at her.

His eyes are light today, like the ocean when it’s shallow enough to feel the sand beneath your feet, and she smiles.

“Good morning, Swan,” he says, his voice rough with sleep. He tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers feather-light without his usual rings, and she closes her eyes. She’d forgotten just how _good_ he feels like this.

“Good morning, Jones,” she whispers, twining her arms around his neck and snuggling even closer to him.

They stare at each other for a long moment, goofy smiles plastered on their faces, and Emma can’t even imagine how much it will hurt to be taken away from him. He is her everything, in a way she never believed possible after Neal left her, and she doesn’t know how she will go on without him.

But as she memorizes the lines of his face and the feeling of his hands tracing random patterns on her waist, she realizes something.

“You know who I am.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Of course I do, love,” he says wryly. “Not so easy to forget a lass who comes storming up to my ship and demands to spend the night with me on the grounds that we’re lovers and I have no memory of it.”

She shakes her head, starting to shake. “No,” she says. “Remember how I told you that your memory restarts every day?”

He nods. “Aye.”

She waits patiently for him to understand, her heart pounding erratically, but he still looks confused; he even scratches that telltale spot behind his ear.

She sighs in aggravation. “You still know who I am,” she exclaims, almost giddy with relief. “It’s the start of a new day, and you still know who I am. I think it’s working. I think your memory is starting to come back!”

His eyes widen. “Emma, love,” he says slowly, and she can tell he’s going to tell her not to get her hopes up but it doesn’t _matter_ , it doesn’t matter because she knows something he doesn’t. “I may remember everything you told me last night, but I still have no recollection of our life together, so perhaps we should –”

She doesn’t know what he says next, because she kisses him.

She can tell the exact moment it works. One moment his lips are hot against hers, his hand light on her neck, affection inherent in his every touch. The next moment, the world shifts, almost indecipherably, and something passes from her to him, and he pulls back abruptly, and she just _knows_ he remembers.

She opens her eyes hesitantly, and he’s looking at her like she’s the answer to every question he’s ever had.

“Emma,” he breathes, his hand trembling as he traces her features, his _blueblueblue_ eyes brimming with tears. “I _missed_ you.”

She starts to cry. She just can’t believe that he’s here with her again. Her Killian. Her Killian, back in her arms.

“I love you,” she says, her voice shaking. It feels like the only thing worth saying.

He smiles at her, and it’s her favorite smile of his, slow and gentle and grateful, the smile he reserves just for her. “Oh, Emma,” he says again, his voice full of such fondness that she feels like she might explode from how truly, truly happy she is to have him back with her. “Gods, Emma, I love you so much.”

He kisses her, and he smells like the sea, and he tastes like home, and she knows that she will never let him go again.

 ...

They emerge from his quarters an hour later. She wishes she could say she spent that time explaining everything, but she’d done enough of that last night. Instead, he takes her in his arms again and makes love to her slowly, sweetly, as if he’s savoring every moment, cataloguing every gasp and moan. They exchange whispered reassurances, his voice reverent as he tells her that he’s so thankful for her and that he doesn’t know how he would have survived without her and that he will never leave her side again, her voice trembling as she tells him that she will always find him and that she loves him more than she ever thought possible and that she is so lucky to have him by her side.

The sun is high in the sky when they climb off the ship, and they have to shield their eyes. But still, it’s perfect, because Killian is standing in front of her, his eyes bright and sure, and she doesn’t know if she can bear the joy swelling in her chest.

She takes his hand, kissing his fingers one by one. “Let’s go home.”

And so they do.


End file.
